Arguing with your spouse can literally make you sick! Married researchers Janice and Ronald Glaser conducted a study to determine the effect of relationships on the body.

So they took healthy, newlywed couples and inflicted them with skin blisters. Then, they had the couples resolve an argument they were having in a mock therapy session.

After the session, the Glasers measured the amount of a certain chemical in each person’s bloodstream – a chemical that helps wounds heal in our bodies. The results?

The couples who were able to calmly resolve their arguments had higher levels of that healing chemical in their bodies, so their blisters healed faster.

The couples who were hostile with each other while trying to solve an argument had lower levels of the chemical in their bodies, and their blisters took an average of 2 days longer to heal than the couples who fixed their problems peacefully.